


A Cultural Experiance

by zomgitsalaura



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2018-08-16 21:03:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8117527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zomgitsalaura/pseuds/zomgitsalaura
Summary: Jazz works as a cultural investigator on cybertron, working different jobs every orn in order to document the rich culture of each segment of the planets castes. Right now he's working with the Praxus enforcers, and there's a doozy of a mystery brewing.





	1. Chapter 1

# A cultural experience

## 

**Chapter 1**

****_A breem is appoximately eight minutes._  
A joor is approximately six and a half hours.  
An orn is approximately thirteen days or two weeks.  
A vorn is approximately eighty-three years.

His caste, in Jazz's own personal opinion, had to be the best on Cybertron. Having been pegged for the job within moments of emerging from the well of all-sparks, the cultural investigator had to admit that any desk-jockey career would have driven him insane in record time.

In fact, he thought, legs propped up on the desk as he sprawled listlessly in his chair (well it wasn't HIS chair but that wasn't the point) that he probably would have gone postal within half a joor. What in Primus name was taking his boss so long, did he get lost between the archives and here?

Jazz huffed, suppressing the urge to fiddle with the mechs' personal computer. Getting here from the archives wasn't THAT hard, Jazz had to go there practically every orn, usually taking a detour to stop in on Orion Pax so he could get his friend to point him in the right direction.

The data clerk was a wiz at navigating the data grids and usually saved Jazz ages of searching through the archives for this or that little tidbit. Speaking of Orion Pax, Jazz mused, he must remember to snag the lower caste mech after work the next time he was over that way and drag him to Maccadams Oil house again. Poor mech didn't get out NEARLY enough for Jazzs' liking, always plugged into the bank of monitors at his station and listening to the air waves while he worked.

Being a cultural investigator, Jazz was almost never standing still. Always hopping from one assignment to the next in order to experience as much of the lifestyle of whatever particular caste he was tasked with documenting on that occasion.

His job gave him a nice degree of freedom, a freedom that he had recently used while he was in Kaon in order to get a closer look at this 'Megatron' character. The gladiator was brutal, definitely not someone you'd want to meet in a dark alley.

That was what was so interesting about his job, the caste system usually led mechs to not interacting outside of their immediate peer group, thousands of vorn of this existence inevitably giving each tier in the system a unique culture and set of beliefs.

His personal favourite thus far having been the artisans, being tasked with recording their Prima's day celebrations had been fantastic and he had thoroughly enjoyed soaking up the atmosphere (not to mention the good food and music). Needless to say that that particular report had taken a fair while to hand in, the inhabitants of crystal city tended to be rather generous that time of the vorn and he had been given many opportunities to catalogue their culture on a first hand basis.

Jazz practically sagged with relief when the office door finally cycled open, giving his superior a cheeky grin in response to the exasperated expression he received.

"What~?" Jazz continued to grin "This chair is MUCH more comfortable than that one" he waved at the seat on the other side of the desk, legs swinging sideways and off the edge of the desk before he stood and made his way over to the larger mech still standing in the doorway.

"So, what have y'got for me this time?" he asked, holding his hand out for the datapad clutched in his bosses' hand.

"Look at it yourself" the mech gave an exasperated sigh and steered Jazz out of his office. Door closing with a swish and beeping loudly as it was locked from the opposite side. The gray and white mech standing where he was left and thumbing through the digital pages on the pad, visored optics scanning the text.

"Blah blah blah Praxus, heh, not too close t'home then." He muttered, starting off down the hall, skipping over the official papers he would need to show upon arrival to his destination. "East side enforcers, cool and apparently" he grinned, signing off his acceptance to the new assignment and electronically sending it to the data clerks for filing "I get to play with these guys for a couple orn."

0

0

0

"What! No!" Prowl practically glared at his superior, pointed sensory wings held high in agitation.

Stakeout just sat back calmly, rotating his computer screen so that his underling could see the official encryption that had been placed on the file. "Not my choice or yours for that matter." The blue captain shrugged "You're the only mech we have even CLOSE to this guy spec wise so you were pegged to sparkling-sit him for the duration of his assignment."

Prowl frowned again, confirming that the file was indeed legitimate before sitting back down. "Fine, so what am I supposed to do with him?" he asked, arms crossing under the front of the hood of his alt mode.

"Well," Stakeout shrugged "he's supposedly compiling a report on our caste so take him on patrols, assign him some quarters, humour him a bit and then we can send him home to Iacon. He is more or less an enforcer for the duration of his assignment so you two should be working pretty closely."

"Oh, fantastic" the black and white mech grumbled, the last thing he needed at the moment was more work to do, he thought, remembering the small pile of reports still needing to be filled from the recent string of gang activity in his sector.

"So, where is this 'investigator' if I might ask _sir_ " he stressed the last word, displeasure at the increased work load evident in the posture of his doorwings.

Digging through his desk for a few moments, Stakeout pulled out a spare pad and downloaded the file with all the details onto it before handing it to the irate enforcer

"You need to collect him from shuttle pad beta-12 in about a joor. He should have all the necessary forms with him. You're free to go." He waved at the door, spinning his computer monitor back around to face him as Prowl stalked out of the office.

Winglets stiff, the black and white enforcer made his way back to his desk. Plugging into his console so he could get some work done on the stack that had managed to grow by several pads since he left, he initiated his in-built tactical simulator and began inputting the data, trying to determine if there were any links or patterns between the recent strings of gang related attacks that seemed to be sweeping the lower levels of the city.

Time seemed to pass quickly as he was working, his chronometer alerting him all too soon that he needed to go collect their 'guest' from the docking stations. Throwing the last completed report into his out box he stood and locked up his work station, heading outside and flipping down into his alt mode with a flurry of moving parts before pulling out in the direction of his target.

**Chapter 2**

He was late, traffic on the main roadways heavily being congested as the second duty cycle of the joor ended and mechs clogged the transportation arteries making their way to and from their assigned posts. The shuttle had landed mere moments before the enforcer had pulled into the compound, the black and white mech having hoped to simply pick this 'Jazz' up straight away and take him to the quarters he had been assigned for the duration of his stay.

Carefully manoeuvring around the throng of mechs exiting the large inter-city class transport, winglets held high and close to his body to prevent collisions, Prowls scanned the crowd for his target. Not spotting the mech he was looking for as the group thinned out he trotted up the ramp and peered inside, frowning when he saw the mech he was looking for leaning over the console and chatting amicably with the view screen.

Upon seeing Prowls displeased face in the reflection of the screen, the enforcer's official marking quite visible on his shoulders, he gave the console a friendly pat. Turning away from the digital representation of the mech whose alt mode he was currently standing in to grin at the chevroned mech who had come to collect him.

"I'm guessin' you're the welcoming committee then?" he strode forward, bringing one hand down onto Prowls shoulder in greeting once he reached the door and earning himself an affronted expression.

Taken aback by the visored mech forwardness, Prowl removed the hand from his shoulder guard with a shrug. "Yes, I am. My designation is Prowl, Enforcer level 4, assigned to the Tactical Response and Investigations Division."

"Jazz, nice to meet ya." he replied, herding a rather stunned Prowl towards the ramp "C'mon, off. Poor mech has another two cities t'get to today."

Stumbling slightly as he was literally pushed out of the shuttle, doorwings shifted high and arching sideways away from the slightly smaller mechs hand on his back causing his balance to falter slightly, Prowl had to resist the urge to just toss the visored mech across the landing platform. Remembering the little note that his superior had left scrawled on the bottom of his orders, 'be nice', sure, it was easy enough to say that when one wasn't getting shoved around by a civilian.

Once far enough away from the shuttle, Jazz finally released Prowl. Still grinning widely as he peered around the view of Praxus the platform offered, he zoomed in on the western sectors that housed a large majority of the artisan caste. The skilled crafters of metals and glass who were the preferred creators of decorative additions to the noble caste alt modes and homes, living among the bases of crystal spires jutting from the depths of the planet. Their own dwellings often cut into the shining natural towers that inspired the design of the entire city.

The artificially created crystal towers that were scattered throughout the city were mostly populated by the science guild. Though they seemed to lack the lustre of the natural spires, the glittering towers were the main feature of the city, lending it the nickname of the 'Crystal City' even though it was really a part of Praxus itself.

"Hey Prowl. You ever seen the towers during their Prima day celebrations? They do this cool thing where all the houses are lit from the inside with thousands of different coloured lanterns. Makes'em shine from the inside out." he smiled a little wistfully, remembering his time being hosted within the beautiful structures.

"From a distance…" Prowl was a little floored by the visored mechs enthusiasm, he was a little odd to say the least.

"I'm based on the opposite end of the city which is, incidentally, where we need to go now."

Jazz hummed, shooting the spires one last look before turning and heading towards the road. Handing Prowl the necessary documents as they continued in root mode in the direction of the designated transformation zone at the very front of the landing hub.

"So, where am I stayin'?" he asked, watching Prowls doorwings out of the corner of his visor, fascinated at how they twitched in counterpoint to his emotions.

The sensory wings flicked outwards in frustration, Jazz smiling to himself in quiet amusement as they did so. "I do not know yet."

Prowl frowned "That is something that we need to organise back at the station."

Jazz raised an optic ridge under the visor, catching the subtle hostility from this mech but showing no visible sign of it. Perhaps he was just not comfortable with interacting outside his caste; it happened quite a lot in Jazz's experience.

"Ah, right, sounds like a plan." He shrugged, flipping down into his alt mode, the glowing red light-bars around his canopy flaring brightly as he talked. "Lead th'way officer. Or am I going to have to find my way around myself?"

Following suit, Prowl transformed and pulled out onto the road, sensors trained on the mech behind him as he navigated through the traffic. Opening his comms, Prowl directed the signal towards Jazz as they found themselves stuck in the pre-shift congestion //I am assuming that you will be housed in the enforcer barracks.//

//Eh, works for me. Easier to watch you guys If I'm close, y'know?// Jazz replied, finally turning off into a side street and off the winding highway.

The going was boring, buildings and streets all more or less the same at ground level save for the occasional shop selling paint jobs or energon confections. That is, it WAS boring until the roar of over-modded engines and the squeal of tires as breaks were applied echoed down the street in the direction they were travelling.

Jazz broke out of his thoughts sharply and just managed to catch the sight of two heavily modified racing alt modes swiftly changing direction and heading down an alleyway. A second later, he was startled as the light bars adoring Prowls doors and roof lit up in a bright strobing pattern before the enforcer barked a quick 'stay here' and tore off after the speeding mechs. Siren wailing loud enough to raise Primus himself as Prowl zipped off down the alleyway.

Never one to pass up an opportunity to have some fun, Jazz more or less ignored the order and sped off as well. Taking another route in the general direction the threesome had headed.

Transforming swiftly to root mode, the two illegally modded mechs attempted to duck into another narrow alleyway, one of them yelping and impacting the ground with a clatter of metal against metal as a white and black blur tackled him from behind.

"You're under arrest for" Prowl panted, attempting to pull cooler air into his internal systems "illegal racing and evading the law."

Snapping stasis cuffs onto the stunned criminal as he called for backup, lamenting the fact that this ones partner was swiftly making his escape as his friend lay incapacitated.

Shifting his grip on the pinned racer, Prowl hauled him to his pedes just as another resounding clang echoed from out on the street. Pushing his captive along, he was surprised upon exiting out onto the street to find none other than the mech he would be watching for a good majority of the next several orn practically perched on his escaped criminals back.

The latter squirming ineffectively as the visored mech dug a knee into his back, one of the racers arms pulled backwards in an immobilising position that both prevented him from transforming and throwing the grinning Jazz off.

"Hi Prowl, I think you were lookin' for this one?" Jazz blinked over his shoulder, grinding his knee a little harder into the squirming mechs back. "Y'know, a set of those cuffs would be nice right about now."

Prowl huffed, turning up the cuff settings on his own captive to ensure he couldn't run away and set him against a nearby wall.

"I thought I told you to stay put." he sighed in exasperation, this Jazz mech was already well on the way to giving him a nervous tick.

Pulling out a second set of cuffs and snapping them onto the still struggling racer pinned beneath the white mechs knee he flicked his sensory panels. Blinking sideways as several sets of strobing lights rounded the corner at the end of the street, heralding the arrival of the reinforcements he requested.

"Yeah, but it's my job to observe you guys" Jazz shrugged, rotation his shoulders and stretching his neck.

"Not to mention that that was pretty fun too" he grinned, offlining one side of his visor in a wink.

Groaning, Prowl brought a hand up to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose, currently convinced that this mech was either going to offline himself within the next few orn or kill Prowl trying.

 

**Chapter 3**

"Stop that."

"Stop what?" Jazz grinned, spinning in his chair to peer at Prowl over the computer monitor.

Prowl leaned sideways, levelling his best disapproving glare in the investigator's direction. "You're humming, it is rather distracting."

The predominantly white mech laughed, reaching over the desk to flick the cables currently snaked out from under Prowls helm.

"I'm bored~"he flicked again "And this is the fourteenth time you've run those numbers and gotten the same result. Whatever happened to the chasin' down of bad guys or gatherin' evidence from the crime scenes?"

Prowl flinched and slapped Jazz's hand away, disconnecting from the monitor. "You have been watching far too many crime dramas."

 He sighed, the cables retracted beneath his plating with a soft snick. "One officer does not do all of that work by himself. The entertainment vids condense many mechs into one character for simplicity's sake."

Jazz pouted, dropping his chin on top of his crossed arms as he leaned on Prowls desk "So…. You're just gonna sit here doin' paperwork for the whole time I'm here?"

If this was true, Jazz was quite sure he was going to offline himself from boredom. Sure, they had given him some paperwork of his own to fill out, mainly pertaining to his apprehension of the illegal racer, but that had only kept him occupied for a little while.

Jazz was idly spinning the wheels on his lower legs when a mech behind him started chuckling, taking him by surprise. Prowl sat up straighter and flicked his sensory wings in a strange salute towards his superior, something that Jazz subtly took note of.

Stakeout leaned over the cubicle dividing wall, holding out a datapad to Prowl and nodding to their 'guest'.

"Actually, you DO have to go observe some crime scene investigation." He grinned at Prowl. "Our good investigator here needs to see ALL the different facets of the process, not just your primary function, otherwise he can't do his job properly."

Jazz barely held in a whoop of glee, grinning widely as Prowl read over the pad.

"A murder in tower beta-12?" Prowl huffed air through his vents.

"Shouldn't the forensics team be dealing with this?" he asked, scanning through what information they already had.

Stakeout just grinned, leaning further over the cubical wall to pat the black and white enforcer on the shoulder. "You and I both know you're perfectly qualified to oversee this investigation."

He laughed. "If you'd TAKE the damn job you'd have my position for Primus' sake."

"Get his job?" Jazz cocked his helm to the side "but, _this_ is your job isn't it?"

It was almost unheard of for mechs to gain promotion from their initial job placement without help from the senate. Jazz himself had literally been doing the same job, albeit a very NICE job, since he was sparked.

"Prowl here has the highest scores in literally every training simulation we have." Stakeout jerked a thumb in Prowls direction, the officer pointedly ignoring the two mechs gleefully invading his workspace. "We even had to make NEW ones for him. He won't take the promotion though, because he enjoys being in tactical too much."

Shoving one of his desk drawers shut with a snap, Prowl transferred the data from his simulations onto a fresh pad and dropped it onto the top of his 'out' pile. "There is nothing wrong with liking my job, thank you very much."

"True." Jazz grinned, tapping the nearest of Prowl's wings as he stood, trying to get the mech moving.

Prowl twitched at the hit, shooting Jazz an affronted look and fluttering the wing joins as though trying to physically shake off the feel of Jazz's hand on his wing. Like most mechs, Jazz didn't realise just how sensitive the appendages were, and tended to inadvertently grope them.

"Move it. Go." Prowl harried Jazz along with a hand to the small of his back, taking Stakeout's teasing with good humour after many years of experience with the higher-ranking mech.

Jazz, however, was still snickering to himself. "They had to make NEW simulations for you? Just how qualified are you?" he grinned, nearly tripping over his own pedes in Prowl's haste.

"I am qualified enough." Prowl rolled his optics. "They do not mind though and seem to enjoy making me fill in for other mechs when they are short."

"Ah, sounds fun. MUCH better than bein' behind that desk all day, in my opinion." Jazz replied, twisting out of Prowls hold to walk beside him.

"Well that's YOUR opinion." The enforcer flicked his wings in a dismissive gesture before stepping out of the building, being careful not to hit himself on the doors as he went. "You must remember that while we are at the crime scene you are NOT to touch anything, move anything, or disrupt the forensic teams."

"I know, I know." Jazz waved his hand, the delicate components disappearing beneath his armour as he dropped down into his alt mode.

"Blah blah 'you're here to observe and write your report' blah blah.' Heard it all before Prowler, I've been doin' it a long time." He teased, red light-bars adorning his alt mode flickering as he talked.

"Of course, how could I forget" Prowl deadpanned back, dropping down into his alt mode as well and pulling out into the street, scanners sweeping behind him briefly to make sure Jazz was still following him.

//Just make sure _you_ do not,// he commed once they were onto the transport artery, smoothly switching lanes until they were pointed in the direction of the fake crystal tower that was their destination.

 

**Chapter 4**

The investigation turned out to be far more boring than Jazz had been led to believe. Most, if not all, of the evidence had been scanned and photographed before they had even gotten there.

On the bright side though, they had been met outside the trashed apartment, which also doubled as the terminated mechs lab, by an incredibly enthusiastic young officer.

The small, official enforcer vehicle alted mech happily keeping Jazz company as Prowl oversaw the amazingly dull task of removing the occupants offline frame.

Apparently the young enforcer was one of the newest batch of sparks extracted from Vector Sigma and had managed to worm his way up through the ranks rather quickly with the help of his brother units.

Some strange quirk in their programming managed to wind their sparks together from activation much to the confusion of the supervising medics. Despite the differences in their assigned caste and function they somehow manage to form an incredibly effective team. Each of them were often 'borrowed' by the city's emergency services in order to save citizens in need.

"Is everything going smoothly Streetwise?" Prowl asked, exchanging a quick doorwing flick with the smaller officer.

The younger mechs doors were far shorter in order for them to fold beneath his alt mode roof if needed as his function often required him to crawl through small spaces that would otherwise catch on the sensitive appendages.

"Yes sir, um" he dug through his subspace, withdrawing the report as well as the datachip containing the hologram scan file of the entire room. "Is there anything else you need sir?"

Streetwise chirped brightly, absently scratching at a patch of noticeably paler scar tissue protruding from under his visor. Surprisingly enough, Jazz found he was unable to see the outline of the other mechs optics from beneath the strip of sensory crystal. Something usually quite easy to do with the modifications Jazz had made to his own visor.

"No, this should be quite enough. How goes your recovery?" Prowl hummed, flipping absently through the first few pages of the report and adding his own observations to the margins.

"Uh, well enough sir" Streetwise chuckled nervously "Aid is still trying to work out a way to replace the main optical processors without frying my memory core."

Jazz balked his own optical centres a little glitchy themselves but that was more a programming issue than hardware. "Wait what?"

"Streetwise here is recovering from a recent attack on the precious metal stores in the inner city" Prowl jerked a thumb in the sheepish enforcers direction, Streetwise's doorwings wiggling from side to side expressively.

"Uh, yeah" he shrugged "I got, um, shot…. Completely slagged my optics and melted what was left to my memory core. According to the medics I'm lucky to be alive."

Well, that would explain not being able to see through the visor, Jazz thought to himself. The entire top portion of the visor was probably a solid piece set directly over the inoperative optics in order to contain the circuitry needed to interpret the visual signals.

"Aid did a pretty good of reconstructing my face though" Streetwise grinned "Only way you'd know anything happened is the scarring from the nanite damage."

"Thankyou Streetwise" Prowl sighed, closing the report and dropping it into his subspace for later before pressing Jazz back towards the entrance "If you begin to feel ill again feel free to end your shift early."

Jazz squawked, giving an exaggerated flail and waving at the young officer as they rounded the corner out of sight.

"Nice kid. Why we leavin' so soon though?" The predominantly white mech trotted forwards a bit and turned on his rear pede stabiliser until her was walking backwards.

Prowl just frowned, waving Jazz off with an exasperated air. "This is just the latest in a long series of deaths in the scientist ranks. We need to get back to base so I can check this data over _properly."_

"Oh, uh, right, quick question." Jazz grinned "Do y'think ah could take a look at the scan he gave you? Y'know, for my report."

The Praxun officer stopped dead in his tracks, cocking his helm to the side and twitching a wing. "Huh… that… actually isn't mine to decide. You'll have to ask Stakeout. If not this one there will be at the very _least_ some demonstration scans you can procure."

"Aw damn." The white mech pouted, crossing his arms over his chest as they finally exited the towering crystal structure.

Truthfully, Jazz didn't want the scan for the report. Upon arriving he had only managed a quick glance at the crime scene before he was bustled outside again. The mechs in the apartment already bagging any evidence they could for examination at a later date.

What stuck Jazz the most about the room was the sheer _brutality_ of the crime. Energon and vital fluids seemed to have been sprayed like a macabre art instillation across the entirety of the room making it rather obvious that the victim was offlined in a rather brutal fashion, even if their remains had already been recovered and mostly removed.

The last time he'd seen anything even _half_ as brutal as the scene he just witnessed were the fights regularly conducted in the gladiatorial pits of Kaon. The fact that something so violent had occurred in the tightly regulated, upper class sectors of the crystal city was incredibly off putting.

 

**Chapter 5**

Stakeout had allowed Jazz access to the scans happily enough once he was told it was for the report, he'd gained a copy himself over the data-network before Prowl and Jazz had even arrived at the scene and as far as he could tell there wasn't anything in there that could do any damage. Mostly the scan had just told them what they already knew, something small had gotten into the apartment through the window and had very near ripped the scientist to shreds.

From the clawmarks on the windowsill, floor and the offlined bot himself they were assuming it was some sort of animal that had made its way into the city from over near the natural crystal towers. Plenty of rabid techanimals roamed about out that way, and if one was rabid it wasn't odd for it to attack a mech to get some energon. The scientist, Microweld, had just been unlucky that his build was woefully under-armored since it really wasn't a necessity when all you did was work with tiny processor parts all day. A rabid turbofox would make quick work of a bot like that with no problem at all.

The only odd thing was that it had gone to so much trouble to get into the building, there were plenty of other easier food sources around this time of the vorn since the planets orbit had brought them in closer to the sun. Plenty of energon springs were practically at capacity down in the wild forest at the bottom of the chasm that the natural crystal towers overlooked. Why bother going so far into Praxus that you'd start hitting the science district?

Either way animal control had been called in to search the area and had found nothing but a few scraplet nests in the basement, which the building owner had been more than happy to pay to get removed.

By the time Prowl and Jazz would back to the station the city would already be dark, the post-shift congestion along the transport arteries making the trip take five times as long as it would really need to. Despite Jazz's suggestion Prowl had foregone the use of sirens to cut through the traffic since there wasn't an emergency they were trying to get to. The start and stop traffic had given Jazz enough time to run through his own sensory log of the scene in better detail and there were a few things that seemed to stick out to him despite only being allowed in the room for a few minutes.

Mostly it had been the smell, he doubted the enforcers had really noticed among all the energon but there was a fairly distinct odour of incredibly highly processed energon mixed with another very subtle smell. A few vorn ago Jazz had been sent to spend a couple orn at an energon refinery in Iacon and since he would actually be working he'd been given a fairly substantial upgrade to his sensor net. Extra duel taste and olfactory receptors had been installed in the roof of his mouth just so he could pick out any impurities in the energon they were working on just by tasting small enough quantities that it couldn't damage his systems.

To be honest he thought it was one of the best upgrades he'd ever gotten as part of the job, that and the ridiculous internal filters that had come with it. Made it a little harder to get overcharged since everything got filtered out so fast but he'd never gotten sick from dodgy energon since.

The smell was still bothering him though, the entire time he'd been chatting to Streetwise he'd been idly running his tongue over the little sensory nodules set behind his denta while he listened. Trying to place exactly what compound had been lingering in the air. If he'd actually been moving at the time he finally worked it out he probably would have swerved into traffic. As it was they were stuck in standstill bumper-to-bumper traffic on the overhead street within viewing distance of the precinct. Too high up to even just transform and walk the rest of the way since there were no pedestrian pathways on the side of the road.

"It's gadolinium." Jazz said out loud, finally placing the odd scent and surprising Prowl enough to make him squeak forwards on his wheels since they'd been driving in near silence for almost the entire trip.

//Pardon?// The enforcers brakelights flashed as he activated the short-range comm, blinding Jazz a little since he'd been focused straight ahead in the general direction of Prowls bumper.

//Sorry, didn't mean to startle you. The uh… smell, in that lab. Gadolinium. As far as I remember they tend to add it to energon used to store processor components. Keeps them from degrading in storage so fast without a frame to put them in.//

Prowl was quiet for a few moments as the traffic started moving again, the pair of them managing to get of the transport artery and onto the main street leading to the precinct rather quickly now that they weren't stalled in place.

Once they got to the side of the road and transformed to walk the rest of the way he started talking again, having used the silence in order to run quickly through the crime scene scans himself. "I don't see anything in the report about any Gadolinium found in the lab… Personally I did not notice any odd smells either."

"I don't think you would. I barely noticed it myself and I'd say my sense of smell is way better than yours." Jazz brushed himself off as he pushed himself up out of his alt mode and into a standing position. "I just thought it was weird is all, even more so if you say there wasn't any in the place."

"True… now that you mention it though it may be something to note down. Microweld was apparently working in the high-end processor creation field. If anything it's strange that he did _not_ have any in the lab." Prowl walked straight past the front door of the precinct, Jazz doing an awkward little hop in place since he'd turned slightly to head inside and had to stop himself in order to keep following.

"Hangon, why aren't we…?"

"Shift change." Prowl flicked his winglets, responses a little clipped since he was so tired. He lead Jazz further down the street to a rather sizeable apartment block, more than a few bots with official enforcer paintjobs milling around the area.

The few blocks this side of the precinct had been zoned specifically for enforcer housing, though you could choose to room in other areas of the city if you wanted to. Most chose not to though since their distinctive paint schemes tended to attract more than a little unwanted attention when they were off shift. Easier to cluster them all together close since by sheer police presence alone it made the precinct and housing blocks the most highly protected part of the city.

Now that Jazz was actually paying attention he finally noticed that most of the bots who had been inside the station during Prowls work hours were heading this way themselves. Of course they would be, Prowl and himself had probably been working in a fairly stable two-shift block. Most bots worked over a two-shift period, the day consisting of six start and end times in order to rotate bots through their jobs without congesting the city up too much. There'd be another four shift starts before they were on again, which suited Jazz just fine since he was about ready to take a nap on any partially horizontal surface he could find.

"Ooooh right, guess that means we're off the clock for a bit." Jazz rocked on his pedes once Prowl led him inside and stopped at the security desk, finger tapping at the side of his helm as he ticked through alert items on his HUD. No wonder he was getting a bit vague, he was getting pretty damn low on charge _and_ energon.

Prowl just made an almost inaudible huffing noise, shoving a keycard he'd been given by the bot manning the front desk at Jazz who took it with a slightly alarmed look. "You may be; I still have work left to do. I'm sure by now Stakeout will have sent you your duty roster for the rest of the orn."

Prowl was still a little ticked off at having to supervise their 'temporary enforcer' for the next orn or so and his body language clearly showed it. Wings pulled back into a rather uncomfortable looking stance from overworking the cables he was even more ticked now since he wouldn't be able to even think of recharging for the next several hours.

"Oh right, yeah. Sorry mech, guess you would do." He fiddled with the card between his fingers a bit, the pile in Prowls in tray had been at least half a hand thick when he was kicked of his desk to escort Jazz around. "Welp, guess I'll leave you to it. Pretty sure I've got plenty of material to work with regardin' you filling out paperwork."

The enforcer made a non-committal hum at that, waving towards the elevator at the far end of the lobby. "You're on level one, room thirteen. You can either have energon from the dispenser in your room for free or there is a bar down the street strictly for enforcers. You could try if you like, though I'm not sure if Stakeout has authorised your identification chip yet. You might not be able to get in."

"If it doesn't work I'll get'im to sort it out later. Caste-specific bars are usually the best place to gather info anyway." Jazz nodded, reaching under his visor to rub at an optic since it was fuzzing out a bit. Low charge tended to make the focus apertures go a bit wonky sometimes.

"For now I guess I'll just go over the report from the scene today. Stakeout just forwarded me a copy." He tapped the side of his helm, giving Prowl a half-aborted wave as he shuffled towards the elevator. "See you next shift I guess?"

Prowl just hummed again, turning on his heel and heading for the door so he could get back to work. Hopefully he'd get the bulk of the work done before the next shift rotation, otherwise he'd not get enough time to recharge before the results from forensics came in. It was going to be a long orn.

 

**Chapter 6**

**6 shift changes per day (rotating schedules to cut down congestion)**

**2 shift changes are one work day**

**1 shift change is 1 joor**

**1 joor is 6 ½ hours**

Once Jazz got inside his temporary accommodations he'd knocked back half a cube of energon and promptly passed out on the surprisingly springy berth to recharge. His chirping chronometer waking him two shift-changes later since that was more than enough time to get a decent full charge. Even if it wasn't he could always use the charging port on the desk he'd been given in the precinct. It wasn't good to use all the time since you stayed awake the entire time and couldn't file short-term memory until you got a proper recharge but at least it filled your internal powerpacks.

Recharging and fueling did two different things afterall. The system used to keep your processors running properly ran off of whatever ambient electricity your internal powerpacks could suck up while you were in a low power mode. Fueling kept your other systems charged which is why you'd go into stasis without fuel after a while, but still probably stay alive long enough to get help as long as you weren't bleeding out. All the leftover energon would get shunted straight to your spark to keep it running while you passively kept your processor going with an ambient charge. Using the charging port on the desk was like charging a datapad with a quick-charge cable.

Either way, two shift changes was more than enough time to get a proper full charge and then it left him with two more shift changes to get some of his own work done. That was almost an entire twelve cycles to do whatever he wanted until Prowl would come looking for him.

They never really had full days off on Cybertron, the days were long enough that you could work, recharge and get any socialising done with plenty of time to spare in between. Some even chose to make their work days longer just so they could save up some extra credits for a rainy day. Enforcers had a pretty decent break between working and off time as well since they had such a stressful job. Better to give them a little more time to blow off steam than let the pressure build up until they exploded after all.

Jazz was lucky in the fact that his actual work, not the work he was helping Prowl with though that did give him a fair bit of insight into the job, involved a lot of socialising in and of itself. Once he dragged his groggy skid plate out of his accommodations he made his way down towards the police bar Prowl had pointed out last night. Almost all of the information he gathered came from job-specific watering holes and, as such, more than a few bots in his profession had earned a bit of a 'party bot' reputation.

By the time he gotten there he'd woken up enough that he felt quite cheerful, the bot at the door apparently having been told ahead of time to let him inside since he didn't raise any protests. His report would certainly include how good the energon was that the place served, which was pretty typical of watering holes that were frequented by essential city services. Couldn't have any of your police or fireman seizing up on the job because their filters got clogged up with scummy energon. Praxus probably kept and ran the bar as part of the city budget.

He spent nearly six cycles just sitting inside and 'spying' on all the bots milling about, occasionally shifting to a different section to get a closer look. There were quite a few jobs he'd never be able to work in first hand since he had neither the technical skill nor the size to do so, so he usually just went and interviewed those bots in person. Jazz was actually pleasantly surprised when he spotted a familiar face sitting at the far end of the bar where the much larger tables and chairs were located.

"Man I'm going to have to kick Orion later for not telling me, would've made stuff way easier." He muttered to himself, heaving himself up onto one of the massive chairs so he could see over the edge of the table. "Roller! Orion didn't tell me y'transferred out here? I thought you'd been shifted to Kaon?"

"Jazz! Someone said there was a teeny bot running around doing a cultural study this orn. Should have figured they'd send you." Roller wasn't even surprised when Jazz leaned up to poke his head over the edge of the table, reaching over to Jazz to jack up his chair a little higher. The little investigator hadn't exactly been stealthy pulling himself up after all and he'd seen him coming a mile away.

The massive bot had previously worked in Iacon as part of the enforcers SWAT teams, Roller easily big enough and armored enough to driver smaller members right up to the front lines where they were needed.

"Nah they moved me out here to help out with and understaffing problem. Apparently not many bots suited for this are coming up in the spark fields nearby." Roller jiggled harder at the handle to the chair, tutting when it wouldn't go up any higher and offering a hand so Jazz could hop up to sit on the table instead. He could have just picked him up around the middle with one hand but that tended to be frowned upon.

"Oh thanks. Yeah none of the others really had specs close enough to run with an enforcer in any sort of useful capacity. Guess they could've just stayed at the station the whole time but your info doesn't tend to be very detailed if you do that. Plus, this way I get to get into the nitty gritty of a proper investigation." He swung his pedes over the edge of the table before skooting back to cross his legs on the table top.

"Couldn't bother you for a little in-depth analysis could I? Can't really see myself gettin' to rotate around to your function any time soon. Might as well include it in the enforcer packet."

He wiggled his datapad and grinned, trying to lean back with his hand on the desk and very nearly knocking an empty cube over the edge.

"Very smooth Jazz, but yeah no problem. I have a couple workmates coming off shift soon you can chat with too. Shouldn't be an issue." He nudged the wobbling cube back onto the table before noticing the little serving drone skooting past and plopping it onto its empty tray. "Let me get you a proper drink though, otherwise it won't be much fun at all."

0

0

0

Prowl had managed to recharge at his desk while working on the last few reports he had leftover before heading back to his apartment to shut down properly for a while. Apparently Stakeout had taken pity on him and forced some of the other tactical data analysts to take on some extra work for the duration of Jazz's stay. He'd have to remember to thank him later, but he wasn't on shift when he finished for the night.

The day must have worn him out a bit more than he expected though since he ended up recharging right through his alarm and almost up until the point his next shift started. If it wasn't his alarm that woke him up though, he wondered, what had it been? A quick check of his HUD cleared up the mystery rather quickly, a half dozen missed comm calls from Jazz then a final text message marked 'urgent' would have done the trick.

The praxun huffed, rubbing the side of his helm as he swung his legs over the edge of the berth and stood up. The missed comm call messages getting tossed in the trash before he even opened the text message from Jazz.

//I'm down at that police bar you told me about and I need _help_ before I end up decking someone. (~)…//

The strange glyph at the end of the message had Prowl pausing mid-step as he read it, trying to work out exactly what it was before he decided it was irrelevant. Instead he opened up a comm line to his temporary partner as he head out the door. Glad at least that he'd showered the night before instead of leaving it for the morning.

//Jazz? Why would you be needing to 'deck' anyone?// He asked as soon as the line opened, a look of bewilderment still plastered on his face as the elevator to the ground floor descended.

//Oh thank Primus I thought you were ignoring me.// The voice on the other end of the line was a little crackly, usually a sign of overcharge which wasn't surprising considering he was apparently at the bar right before his shift was about to start. That was probably something he'd have to report to Stakeout if it turned out Jazz was drinking this early, though probably not much would be done about it other than to not have Jazz work with him in the field today. The investigators had a set of laxer rules regarding drinking on the job considering a lot of the work they did.

//Look I've got a bit of an issue here.// Jazz continued, the line cutting out a bit before coming back online. //I'm a bit… stuck. I was talkin' with some of the SWAT armored carrier mechs and I sortof know one of'em from when he worked in Iacon. He is real overcharged right now and is not lettin' go, I would really appreciate it if you could come fetch me.//

//I… what?// Prowl threw a dismissive wave at the security mech at the front door of the apartment complex when they tried to ask him what's wrong, following up the motion with a gesture to his helm to indicate he was on an internal call. //He won't let you go?//

//Nope, he's got a real good hold of a winglette right now.//

//I'll be there momentarily// Prowl walked a little faster, the doorman at the bar stepping aside to let him through as soon as he got there. Prowls paintjob was a fair bit more distinctive than most so it was rather obvious he was an enforcer.

He found Jazz at the far back of the room that was dedicated to bots with much larger frames, Jazz literally sagging slightly in relief when he got there and turning to thwap Roller on the chest to get his attention.

"Look big guy, I really gotta go. See, Prowls here t'pick me up for a shift and everything." He tried to squirm free a bit, Roller just dragging him back in closer against his chest and fiddling with the winglet he'd seized a little more.

"Noooo y'don't need to go work. Y'can stay here and do some more investigate-y stuffs. Or come back t'my place y'know, you little Polyhexan bots 're good at that stuff right? You can investigate some other stuffs if y'know what I mean." He slurred a little, tweaking the winglet in a way that made Jazz jerk and Prowl wince in sympathy and flick his back further behind him.

Prowl didn't even realise Jazz had winglettes, though considering the size of them it would stand to reason he'd keep them hidden under the roof of his alt mode that sat flat over his back most of the time. Personally he'd love to be able to do the same considering so many bots seemed to be absolutely drawn to groping them.

"He's right Roller, we should be starting our shift soon. Jazz wants to go too; you really need to let him go." He had to lean back to look Roller in the optic, the massive bot frowning down at him as he was told off before turning back to Jazz and muttering in his audio. Jazz pausing in his effort to pry his fingers off a winglette and going a little red in the face under the visor.

"Nope, sorry big bot maybe next time y'know? You should go home and recharge off the energon." He thwaped Roller in the wrist rather hard, making the servos jolt and fingers loosen enough for him to wiggle free and jump down onto the ground. "Yup, alright, see you later time for work and all that."

Jazz ended up grabbing Prowl by the elbow, speed walking as fast as he could towards the door and thunking into more than a few bots accidentally with his outstretched and shaking winglettes. Actually touching each other Prowl could tell Jazz wasn't overcharged in the sense he thought he was before, but there was certainly another reason his comm would be fritzing out as bad as it had been.

Once they got outside Prowl steered him off into an alleyway just in case Roller had managed to drunkenly follow them outside. Jazz whuffing loudly to expel hot air out of his systems as he leaned against the wall to steady himself.

"I should say at least you're not overcharged, but that can't be comfortable either." Prowl leaned out of the alleyway to watch the street, Jazz snorting and shaking his head in his peripheral as he tried to calm his sensory net back down to a reasonable level. "How long exactly did he have you captive? Considering you got free on your own I don't see why you needed me here."

"About a cycle, and I needed the distraction honestly. Could've hit him a lot harder but I might've gotten in trouble in a bar that full of cops. Was getting pretty close to doin' it when you finally answered your comms." He slid down the wall to sit on the ground, flopping his arms over his knees and leaning his forehead against them as he tried to vent slowly.

"Ah well, I apologise. I overcharged and had my comms set to silent." He gave Jazz a concerned look, trying to pretend he didn't notice that his winglettes were still shaking with excess charge. "Your friend must have been rather overcharged though if he was insinuating what I think he was insinuating. His hand is nearly as large as your torso, scale wise you definitely would not be compatible."

That earned an amused snort out of Jazz, the bot looking up at Prowl briefly before letting his head thunk back down on his forearms. "Nah, size ain't much of an issue if y'know what you're doing. My issue was I had a shift real soon and he's was overcharged off his skidplate. Some real consent issues there y'know? That and I'm not super interested in that stuff anyway."

He flapped a hand at the confused look Prowl was giving him snickering into his forearms even as he shifted to tuck his winglettes back under the hood of his alt mode. "I'm from Polyhex mech, had more than a few chances to rub elbows with the 'professional companions' we got workin' down there. They make our frames real flexible for a reason but I lucked out and got a better job. Don't think too much about it you'll blow a logic board or something."

He rolled to his pedes, rubbing his hands along his arms and getting little crackles of static before striding purposefully towards the road. "ANYWAY, we got work t'do right? Ain't no sense in spending all day in an alleyway behind a bar when I actually got some neat info this morning."

Prowl gave him a sceptical look, following him into the street anyway and towards to precinct. He did absently note that this was the first time he'd actually been able to hear Jazz's engine; the other times they'd been around each other it had been odd how silent the bots' systems were. It was probably due to him being so keyed up but that was an odd modification for a bot to have if they didn't need it specifically for a job. He'd have to ask about it later.

"And what 'neat info' would that be? Is it to do with the case from yesterday?"

"Yeah, I was talkin' with Roller before he got blitzed out of his processor. He used to work up in Iacon and was a friend of a friend y'know?" Jazz turned around to walk backwards as he talked, the street was completely empty since there was another cycle before the next shift change.

"Then he got moved down Kaon way t'help train some of their enforcers before gettin' moved up here. Apparently there were some real weird robberies in both locations that had some trace of animals hangin' around afterwards. Down Kaon way it was mostly cybertronium from the mines, but what was weirder was th'ones in Iacon. Apparently someone broke into the spark-vaults but according to the manifests there were none missing."

He waved his arms as he talked, swerving to go around a light pole without turning around to looking at it. "Manifests are easy enough t'fudge but that should probably be checked better by a coder. Anyway, moving on, one of Rollers friends came by after I found that out, big mech, he was apparently workin' on the day that metal refinery blew up. He said there was a bunch of stuff missing from there as well. Apparently a lot of th'raw material was set to be delivered to a protoform factory up in Iacon. With those three weird incidents plus the one last night…"

He held up four fingers, tapping on his index finger with his other hand. "We got maybe a bunch of sparks in storage, enough protoform metal and cybertronium to build a bunch of real nice high-grade frames, AND a bunch of processors."

"Ah…. And you worked that out just by sitting in a bar all morning." Prowl narrowed his optics a bit, Jazz's information wasn't _wrong_ per say but there was more than a little bit of detective work that would need to be followed through with to verify the rumours. He hadn't even told Jazz that the processor components were missing yet, though so far Jazz had proven himself to be more than a little perceptive so it wasn't surprising that he'd worked it out himself.

"You'd be surprised how much y'can learn just sitting in a bar if you talk to the right bots. Anyway, just thought you'd like some things to follow up on. If you want I can get a friend who works in the Iacon archives to send down the other case files."

"You probably should. I'll follow up with the Kaon enforcers for the other information and inform Stakeout. It's not a solid lead just yet, but if we can link these crimes together we might have somewhere to go from here."

 


	2. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lovely comment was given so more was written <3

**Chapter 7**

** **

Prowl hated to admit it but Jazz’s trip to the bar had yielded more than a little bit of good information. The attacks he’d mentioned in both Iacon and Kaon were definitely connected, though the thread that bound them together was certainly extremely odd.

The storage facility that had been holding raw cybertronium extracted from the mines had been broken into several times over the last couple vorn. Each time they’d just chalked it up to wild animals breaking inside to escape from the frequent storms that tended to dump massive amounts of acid rain on the area. Their attempts to get inside ended up damaging the facility enough that opportunistic thieves could come in and cart off crates of the unprocessed ores. The scratches left on the walls and floor near the suspected point of entry had certainly suggested that, and the fact that the mines in question backed up onto the untamed wilds of the rust sea meant that there were often hoards of wild animals stalking about.

The break-in at Iacons spark-vaults had been a little harder to hand-wave away. Jazz’s friend who worked in the archives had sent over the required documents within minutes of being asked about them; Jazz’s clearance apparently expediating the process that would even take PROWL a few days to get through.

The vault had been breached late at night during a storm, claw marks visible around the entryway and a guard that had been mauled certainly suggested it was the same sort of creature that had attacked the mines storage warehouse. The fact that it was located in the middle of Iacon made the entire thing a lot weirder though. It wasn’t located anywhere near where wild creatures would congregate so what had it been doing there in the first place?

Another thing that struck Prowl as being odd was that both the multiple warehouse break-ins and the spark-vault incident had happened during a massive downpour. When it was raining that hard very few bots were even equipped to be outside for very long. The acid rain tended to strip paint down to bare metal rather quickly in a process that was neither pleasant or particularly attractive. It usually took days for your own nanites to repopulate enough to give you back any sort of colouration to your frame. The buildings in the city tended to fair much better, though the nanites that coated and repaired the surface of the massive towers tended to have specifically designed spots for them to accumulate in until the raining stopped.

Either way, during a rainstorm bad enough to strip a bot to bare metal there definitely wouldn’t be many witnesses roaming about. The sound of the rain itself would even account for the fact that no one heard any of the incidents taking place.

Jazz had come to the same conclusion nearly a cycle before Prowl had managed to process it, though he hadn’t said it out loud since he seemed to be preoccupied thumbing through a datapad he was holding. Prowl only knew he HAD when Stakeout had sent him a message, apparently the pair of them needed to get out and talk to some of the dead scientists colleagues, so he turned around looking for Jazz thinking the bot had disappeared off somewhere.

He was unused to Jazz sitting still and being quiet for so long without complaining, and upon turning around had noticed the file open on Jazz’s screen with his notes written down on it. The files autosave timestamped a significant chunk of time before Prowl had even picked up on the weird rain coincidence.

Honestly the silence was a little unnerving, especially since Prowl STILL couldn’t hear the other bots systems working even in the relative silence of the tactical wing of the precinct. He wasn’t even sure Jazz was venting very often, though his heat signature was barely registering above that of the room. If he wasn’t looking directly at him he would have sworn from a sensory sweep that there was no one there.

“Why are you staring?” Jazz didn’t move when he talked, still sitting with his legs tucked up on the oversized chair he’d stolen from an empty desk. Prowl jumping since he hadn’t realised Jazz had noticed him looking at him.

“Oh… sorry, I did not realise I was. I thought you had left since I couldn’t see you… or sense you there.” Prowl admitted sheepishly, Jazz just inclining his helm slightly but not looking up from his pad.

“Yeah sorry, I forget I do that sometimes… disappear off sensors. I’ll try to leak more ambient noise if it makes you more comfortable.” He shifted in place a bit, armor flaring out slightly as he tried to adjust into a less uncomfortable position. “They make us real quiet so we can observe without getting noticed sometimes, though it tends to freak bots out if they turn around expecting no-one to be there and SURPRISE I was here the whole time.”

Prowl made a quiet ‘ah’ noise of understanding, thinking back at the other instances where he’d wanted to ask Jazz about the odd silence of his systems but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. It certainly explained a few things. Sometimes they needed to NOT be noticed in order to get an uninfluenced observation. If you knew you were being watched you’d act differently than if you thought you were alone.

“I’m still more quiet than most of my peers though, sometimes I get upgrades for the places I’m doing work in.” He gave up trying to get comfortable, putting the pad down on the desk and standing up to stretch properly. “The smell thing was one of them, I did a couple orn at an energon refinery so they upgraded that for me AND my filters. Audios were a gift from the bots at the main comms tower in Polyhex, the racetracks tricked out my engines and the main engineer at the protoform factories modded me to run stealth like the military grade frames he was working on at the time just to show the whole thing off. Strange guy, pretty friendly though, has weird light up doodads on the side of his head. Frankly by this stage I think the only original bit of me left is spark and processor.”

Jazz shrugged, wiggling his winglettes free from under his back-plate so he could stretch those too. Wiggling them playfully at prowl before folding them back away. “Not that I’m complaining. Some bots pay through the teeth for frame upgrades like that.”

Prowl just frowned, winglettes giving an almost imperceptible wiggle back without him realising it. “Was all that necessary though? I would assume it wasn’t very comfortable getting that many modifications…. Or particularly safe.”

“Didn’t really have much of a choice. Most of it was so I could actually participate in the work they were doin’ without putting myself in danger.” Jazz shrugged, sitting back down with a whuff of air from his vents. Hand coming up so he could tap the side of his visor with a finger before he picked up his pad and went back to reading.

“There were a couple coding hiccups where things didn’t quite mesh, but I’ve worked around it. Optical input gets a bit glitchy when I’m tired and unable to focus it, but the visor just bypasses the whole thing. Kinda like Streetwise, but on a less severe scale.”

Prowl tutted, a little perturbed by the fact that Jazz seemed rather blasé about having unwanted upgrades forced upon him. It seemed to be par for the course for the CI though if the way Jazz talked about it was anything to gauge it by. Usually that many mods would cause all sorts of coding glitches down the line, thankfully it seemed like Jazz had escaped with relatively few issues he had to deal with.

The enforcer was about to turn back around before he realised he’d actually wanted to talk to Jazz about something before he’d gotten thrown off track by their conversation. Winglettes snapping back up from where they’d slowly lowered until they were almost touching his arm rests.

“Ah! Jazz, I needed to talk to you.” Prowl exclaimed, making Jazz look up from his datapad in surprise again. “Stakeout messaged me, they’ve managed to get a hold of the other bots that work in the same lab our animal-attack victim worked at. It’s not the same location he was attacked at, though it is close by. Apparently his was a satellite lab they used for manufacturing some specific components. Keeping them at the main lab prior to assembly was too dangerous.”

“Understandable, he was workin’ with long-term memory storage according to this.” Jazz lifted his pad up “I’ve been readin’ up about processor construction, some of the stuff they use in manufacturing less important components are real volatile. The memory units need to be in pristine condition so they’re usually manufactured off-site and suspended in a chemical solution for transport to keep them stable. What’s super weird is that there should have been HEAPS of suspension solution at the lab where that scientist was attacked and they found what… one smashed jar? Really doesn’t account for the sheer concentration of gadolinium that I smelled comin’ off the place.”

Prowl nodded, winglettes canted at an odd angle since he was thrown off a bit by Jazz just ‘reading up’ on something as complex and near incomprehensible as processor construction. He himself had gotten the information in a rather condensed form directly from the forensics team. “Yyyyes, exactly that. We need to go ask the other scientists about it. Perhaps he’d sent out a shipment recently which would explain the lack of supplies. If not, we may have a larger issue at hand.”

0

0

0

They didn’t really have the option of driving at another time today, the timing of their exit from the station putting them right in the middle of shift-change traffic. The gridlock was so bad that half-way to their destination they ended up transforming to walk through the middle of downtown rather than drive. It added a good cycle to their trip but honestly it would have taken just as long in their alt modes but chewed through twice as much fuel.

Downtown Praxus was gorgeous anyway, so neither of them really wanted to complain about being ‘forced’ to go for a walk past the storefronts and gardens that made up the more ‘touristy’ section of the city. Jazz had been especially enthusiastic about the detour they took through one of the larger gardens surrounding the main library of the city.

The massive building was only rivalled by the archives in Iacon, and even that library wasn’t ‘alive’ in the same way. The Praxus library was housed within an offshoot species of the Metrotitan city-bots. Much smaller but no less sentient and she certainly didn’t approve of late returns on borrowed books. The gardens extended all the way out until the very edge of her frame, mostly so there was a visual guide as to how far she extended from the visible part of the building so no extra construction was attempted on top of her.

Jazz had only had a chance to go inside once before, and that was on an excursion with Orion. He hadn’t really had a chance to come back since she didn’t contain any of the information he ever needed. Her collection was almost entirely art and entertainment, with a smaller archive of the cities scientific databases. The Iacon archives, however, housed more of the planets historical and governmental databases.

Jazz’s own reports were kept in the ‘governmental’ databases, though he had been told by Orion that there was often a rather long line to read them whenever a new one came through. Apparently he had a bit of a flair for making them an interesting read.

The lab itself had been amazingly uneventful, Jazz hanging back and letting Prowl take over for the most part as he observed. More than a few of the scientists had been rather jumpy but he’d expected that to happen. Their workmate had been killed after all, and most bots got a little weird around enforcers.

Jazz had been happily checking out the processor assembly machine through a window when Prowl had finally come to find him. Prowl tapping him on the shoulder before shooting a look towards the assembly machine and looking a little queasy.

“How can you watch that without feeling ill?” He turned away, winglettes a little stiff as he watched Jazz out of the corner of his optic.

“Don’t you find it interesting? These guys build all these tiny components then feed them into that huge thing and it just… builds a bots brain. I think it’s neat.” Jazz shrugged, pushing off the wall he’d been leaning on and following Prowl towards the exit.

“Not particularly keen on looking at things like that myself, no matter how interesting the whole process may be.” Prowl shook his helm, hand digging in subspace for the second copy of the data they’d been given permission to pull from the labs servers and handing the data-stick to Jazz. “Stakeout says you have permission to look through this as well, since you seem capable enough to properly help with the investigation. I’ve been told to treat you as if you were a new addition to the investigative team.”

“Neat. So, I actually have permission to comb through stuff properly now.” Jazz took the disk happily, popping it in a slot in his arm even as Prowl gave him a surprised look. “Really? Still surprised by this stuff? I have direct data hook-ups for the archives for writing my reports, a data-stick slot is pretty par for the course.”

“I really shouldn’t be. Honestly at this point I shouldn’t be surprised if you had a third alt mode.” Prowl shook his head, gesturing towards the library. “I prefer to use an actual computer station though, so if you don’t mind we might rent out a room. Enforcers have priority bookings in case we need to run over data just like this and aren’t near a station.”

“Haaah yeah fair enough, guess you don’t have a visor or anything to read the stuff off of. Was kinda hoping I’d get the chance to go inside the library anyway.” Jazz followed along with a bit of a skip in his step, part of his processor combing through the data they’d pulled from the lab as they went.

 

 


End file.
